Thursday, August 21, 2008

Lear Week is Coming! Also, a New Poll.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. R. A. Foakes. Arden Shakespeare. London: Routledge, 1997.This morning, I need to offer a few words of a devotional nature to the assembled faculty of my college—it's nearly all ready already, though it needs (as always) a bit of polishing—and I'm busily trying to decide whether allusions to Henry V will work better than allusions to Measure for Measure. The audience will be, I expect, more familiar with the former, but the latter would give me greater opportunity for close reading, which is part of the point of the message of the day. But perhaps I should concentrate my efforts on avoiding strings of prepositional phrases instead.

All that to say that the last poll indicated that readers would rather have a week devoted to King Lear than to any of the other options. Starting on Monday, therefore, it will be Lear Week at Bardfilm. It will also be the first week of classes, which always leaves me feeling like I'm out on a blasted heath, so it will all work together nicely.

Meanwhile, a new poll invites you to choose which of several films that have not been released on DVD you would most like to have released on DVD. You can only choose one, folks—but, whichever one you choose, I will make inquiries to the studio(s) in question and see what they have to say!

Click below to purchase the Arden Edition of the Play from amazon.com(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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Bardfilmis normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilmis a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:

KJ is a professor of English and Literature at a small Christian liberal arts college. In addition to courses entitled “Shakespeare” and “Introduction to Shakespeare,” he teaches a course called “Shakespeare and Film.” Recently, he developed a course titled “Modern Shakespearean Fiction.” Shakespeare is also integrated into nearly all his other courses, including courses on the Literature of Food and the Literature of Humor. Additionally, he is the author of Bardfilm: The Shakespeare and Film Microblog. But you may have known that already.